Lost and Found: Reassurances
by erm31323
Summary: Prize for the 100th reviewer of Lost and Found - Missing scene between Harry and Sirius from Chapter 18 of Lost and Found. Harry needs reassurance about his importance in Sirius' life. What Sirius doesn't realize is that he will get a little reassurance of his own.


**A/N - Hi everyone! This is a companion piece to my story "Lost and Found" a prize for FrostyFriend96 for being the 100th reviewer! She asked for the missing scene from Chapter 18 between Sirius and Harry. This takes place right after Catherine and Harry talk after Harry has accidentally found out that Sirius and Catherine are dating. I hope you like it. :)**

**Reassurances**

**20 August 1995**

Sirius closed the door behind him and leaned his back against it, studying his godson for a moment. Harry glanced up at him, then looked back down at his lap. Taking a deep breath, Sirius went and sat down on Ron's bed, facing Harry.

"I'm sorry Harry," Sirius said, when he realized the teen wasn't going to speak first. Harry glanced up at him in surprise.

"For what?" Harry asked.

"For not telling you sooner about Catherine and me," Sirius said. Harry shook his head.

"You don't have to apologize," Harry said. "It has been kind of mental around here." Sirius chuckled. Harry fell silent and bit his lip and Sirius waited. "Er, I'm um, I'm sorry for what I said," Harry finally continued. Sirius' mouth tightened for a moment.

"I accept your apology," Sirius said. "But I hope I don't ever hear anything that disrespectful come from you again." Harry's face reddened. "I'm not talking about myself, although it was disrespectful to me as well. But you are never to speak to a woman like that." Harry simply nodded, his face growing redder.

"I told Catherine I was sorry," Harry nearly whispered.

"Good," Sirius replied. He sighed and moved over to Harry's bed, sitting down next to him. He put an arm around his godson. "We both screwed up. I should have told you sooner and you shouldn't have said what you did. We've both apologized, so let's just move on, all right?" Harry nodded, but he still worried his lip between his teeth. "Something else on your mind?" Harry shrugged.

"Look, Harry, I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I'm probably going to be complete rubbish at this 'parent' thing," Sirius admitted. "But I do want you to know that you can talk to me about anything." There was a long silence and just as Sirius was about to admit defeat, he felt Harry lean into him slightly. Sirius' grip around his shoulder tightened.

"What were my parents like?" Harry finally asked quietly. Sirius closed his eyes, the familiar surge of pain whenever James and Lily were mentioned making its presence known. He swallowed thickly and pulled in a breath.

"Your parents," Sirius began, then paused to take another breath. "Your parents were two of the best people I ever knew. Your dad and I met the on the train first year. We were friends from the start, kind of like you and Ron I expect." He felt Harry nod into his shoulder. "I probably wouldn't have gotten into nearly as much trouble if it hadn't been for your dad, but I never would have had as much fun either." Harry snickered. "He was one of the only people who knew of my family and didn't form an opinion about me right away. I loved that about him." Sirius looked wistfully off across the room. "He was…I don't think I can even really describe it really. He was like a brother to me, more than my own was at any rate. I loved him," he finished simply.

"And your mother," Sirius continued, shaking his head with a small smile on his face. "Merlin she was beautiful." Sirius glanced down at Harry and saw the wide grin that spread across his face. "You know how some girls are sort of goofy looking when they're younger and then they grow into their beauty?" Harry nodded with a laugh. "Not your mum. She was beautiful from the day we laid eyes on her. I think your dad feel in love with her right then, although he had no idea at eleven to actually call it that. She was smart too, Hermione reminds me a bit of her, to be honest, always wanting to find out everything she can about every subject. Lily was curious like that. And she was kind, well mostly." Sirius paused and grinned. Harry looked up at him quizzically.

"She wasn't too fond of your dad and me," he explained. "She thought we right idiots, actually. And she was right, we were." Harry laughed out loud this time and Sirius smiled to hear it. "Anyway, she rarely let a chance go by to let us know just what she thought of us. Course, it didn't help that starting at the end of fourth year, your dad was constantly hounding her to go out with him." Harry sat up and turned a bit so he was facing Sirius.

"So if she hated you so much, how did they get together?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Ah, well, I didn't say she hated us," Sirius replied. "I think she always felt a little something for your dad, but he was such a prat that she didn't want to admit it. And we started growing up a bit sixth year. But when they made Head Boy and Head Girl, that's really when things changed for them. Your dad stopped being such an arrogant git and your mum saw that he really could be responsible and do what he was supposed to. Our seventh year, there was a Halloween Ball and your mum and dad went together and the rest is history as they say." Harry nodded and sat quietly for a moment, then got up and walked to his trunk. He dug around for a few minutes and pulled out what looked like some kind of book. He hugged it to his chest as he turned to face Sirius.

"Hagrid gave this to me at the end of first year," Harry explained, walking back towards the bed and sitting back down with it on his lap. Sirius saw then that it was a photo album. Harry opened it to the first page and a picture of James and Lily with a giggling baby Harry looked back at him. Sirius' breath left him as he stared at the picture of his long-dead friends. It wasn't that he didn't see them in his mind all the time, he did, but it was usually some broken version of them or an accusatory nightmare version. But this, this was proof that they had once been deliriously happy and in love with each other and their baby.

For some reason it was more difficult to look at this picture than the wedding album had been. Maybe because this time Sirius was looking at it with the tangible evidence of James and Lily's love sitting right next to him. Maybe it was still guilt or misery, but whatever it was, Sirius knew that he needed to get control of his emotions and talk to Harry. He finally sucked in a long breath as Harry watched him nervously.

"I remember this picture," Sirius finally said, his voice a bit shaky, but a smile on his face. "Your mum and dad sent it out with their Christmas presents that year. They were so excited when they found out your mum was pregnant." Sirius paused and stared at the picture for a few seconds, then he began to chuckle. Harry looked at him questioningly.

"You should have seen the first time your dad tried to change your nappy the muggle way," Sirius explained. "I think he was trying to impress your mum or something. Anyway, you were about three months old at the time and it was one of the most hysterical things I've ever seen and I've see Snape with pink hair." Harry laughed. "When he thought he had finally done it, he picked you up and the nappy slid right off and then," Sirius broke off, laughing too hard to continue. "And then you peed all over the front of him and giggled." Harry blushed but laughed all the same. Sirius finally recovered himself and looked at Harry again. "Merlin they were so proud of you."

Harry tried to continue smiling, but Sirius saw his eyes brighten and his chin begin to tremble. Not really knowing what to do, Sirius simply put his arm back around him and pulled Harry close. Harry made no move to turn the page and they both kept looking at the photograph. Lily picked up baby Harry's hand and made him wave at the camera, causing Harry to giggle. James ruffled Harry's hair and then kissed Lily on the cheek. The action repeated itself over and over until it blurred in front of Sirius. It took him a moment to realize it was because of the tears that now filled his eyes for the little boy who was robbed of the loving family he deserved. Hugging Harry closer to him, he kissed the top of his godson's head.

"They're still proud of you Harry," he said quietly. "The person you've become despite all that you've been through." Harry nodded and Sirius felt his shirt dampen. He gently slid the album from Harry's lap, laying it to the side. Then he wrapped both arms around Harry and pulled him close. "They loved you so much. You were everything to them. I know that they wish it could have been different, that they could still be here with you, but the fact that you survived because of what they did would have made it all worth it to them." Sirius rested his head on top of Harry's until Harry had finally quieted and then pulled back from him a little.

"Do you want to show me the rest?" he asked and Harry nodded and he wiped his eyes. Sirius picked the album back up and handed it to Harry, but before he opened it, Harry looked up at Sirius.

"I've seen them," he said quietly. "Besides just in pictures I mean."

"Sorry?" Sirius asked in confusion.

"Christmas my first year," Harry explained. "Someone gave me my dad's cloak and I was out sneaking around after curfew. I almost got caught and I hid in this old classroom. There was this mirror in there and when I stood in front of it, I could see them. All of them, my parents and I guess my grandparents and a bunch of other people. I didn't know who they were exactly, but some of them looked kind of like me."

"What was the mirror?" Sirius asked.

"Professor Dumbledore said it was the Mirror of Erised," Harry replied.

"Ah," Sirius said, his suspicions confirmed.

"I, er, went back again to look at it, more than once," Harry admitted. "Finally Professor Dumbledore found me and told me that he was going to move it somewhere else and he asked me not to look for it again." Harry paused and looked at his lap. "I didn't, but…it was hard not to. Aunt Petunia never talks about my mum except to call her a freak." Sirius' jaw clenched. "And she's never said anything about my grandparents except that they were proud of my mum for being a witch. And Aunt Petunia wasn't very happy about that."

"I only met your mum's parents once at the wedding. They were lovely people, but they died not long afterward," Sirius explained. "Car crash."

"That's what Aunt Petunia used to tell me happened to my parents," Harry said. Sirius growled. What he wouldn't give for just five minutes alone with Petunia and that great whale Dursley.

"I've got something to show you," Sirius said instead. "Wait here." Sirius got up and quickly went up to his room where he had put the wedding album Remus had brought. He took it back down to Harry's room with him and closed the door once again.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"This is from your mum and dad's wedding," Sirius said as he sat back down. "All of your grandparents are in here." Harry took the book excitedly from Sirius and opened it up. Sirius pointed out the younger versions of people that Harry knew and some he didn't and Harry's grin grew wider with each picture. He scowled however, when he came to the picture of the four marauders together. His hands twitched and Sirius was quite sure he wanted to pull the picture from the album and tear Wormtail out of it. Sirius couldn't deny that a part of him wanted to do the same.

"I understand how you feel," Sirius said. "But, you have no other frame of reference for him except that of the traitor. Remus and I remember how he used to be before all of that happened. He was a good friend once. Even here, I don't think he'd turned yet." Harry studied the picture again, looking back up at Sirius.

"You look kind of sad here," he said. Sirius regarded Harry for a few moments.

"Yes," Sirius simply said.

"How come?" Harry asked. Sirius raked a hand through his hair and sighed. "You don't have to tell me," Harry said looking away.

"No, no," Sirius said, trying to reassure him. "Your parents got married about six months after I'd broken things off with Catherine. I guess I was probably just imagining what could have been." Harry stared at him for a few moments before looking back down at the album. Sirius knew that the boy wanted to ask him what had happened, but he wasn't sure if he should. To be honest, Sirius wasn't sure if he should tell him, or if he even could. That memory was almost as painful as the one from that fateful Halloween.

"It's a very long story and I don't think that I can get into all of it right now," Sirius finally said. "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that I can't. It's still…painful." Harry watched him in concern. Sirius blew out another breath. "I told you before that things were more difficult back then than they are now and that was true. Catherine was attacked while we were still at school." Harry looked horrified. Sirius nodded grimly. "She was a fifth year to my seventh. She was attacked because she was a muggle-born and, I found out later, because of her association with me. Her parents pulled her out of school right after. We continued dating for a while and when she turned seventeen, she was going to leave home and come and stay with Remus and me." Sirius glanced at Harry who was watching Sirius with a look of concern.

"Your dad and I were training to be Aurors then and after I arrested a couple of Death Eaters one day, Catherine was threatened," Sirius continued. "I thought that the only way to keep her safe was to keep her in the muggle world instead of ours. No one had come after her there and I thought that if she didn't have any further connections with me, that she'd stay there. So I broke it off with her. The only other thing I regret almost as much as I regret making Wormtail your secret-keeper." Sirius finished speaking and looked down at his lap. Harry didn't say anything for a few moments.

"You really love her don't you?" he finally said.

"She's the only woman I've ever loved," Sirius replied. Harry nodded.

"Catherine said that if her kids didn't want you to be together, that you wouldn't be," Harry said tentatively.

"Same goes for you, you know," Sirius said.

"Yeah, she said that too," Harry admitted. Sirius waited, suspecting there was more Harry wanted to say. Harry looked up at him. "If you two love each other that much, I could never tell you not to see her anymore. Besides," he said, somewhat shyly. "I do like her." Sirius smiled.

"She likes you very much," Sirius said. "There's something you should know about Catherine. Once she's decided that she likes you, or loves you as the case may be, that's it, you're hers. Unless you do something completely stupid and betray her and even then, she's willing to give you another chance if she knows you truly regret it." Harry looked at him in confusion. Sirius put a hand on his shoulder.

"I suspect, very much actually, that Catherine already considers you one of her children," Sirius said. Harry's mouth dropped open. "She won't push you and she may not even consciously realize that she regards you that way yet, but she has a protective streak that is only eclipsed by her capacity to love people. She would go to hell and back for the people she loves and if I'm not mistaken, your name has just been added to that list."

Harry clearly had no idea what to say. He gaped for a few more minutes and then closed his mouth with an audible snap. Sirius waited, his hand still on Harry's shoulder.

"She won't expect anything from you," Sirius continued. "Nor do I expect you to give her anything. That's not why I'm telling you this. I just want you to know that you _can_ count on her, Harry. I don't know what she said to you or what the two of you talked about and I don't need to know if you don't want to tell me. But she will be there for you if you ever need her. As will I. All right?" Harry managed to nod and Sirius clapped his shoulder.

"You know, I think I have a few more pictures in my room that you might like," Sirius said. "What do you say?"

"Yeah, definitely," Harry said with a smile. Sirius returned it and the two stood, Sirius throwing an arm around Harry's shoulders and leading him from the room. "Let me tell you about this prank that we pulled in our fifth year," Sirius said.

"Does it have anything to do with Snape having pink hair?" Harry asked and Sirius' grin widened.

"Why yes, as a matter of fact it does," Sirius admitted. "It was during the Halloween feast and it was Moony's idea for once. Usually Prongs and I came up with the ideas and then Moony put them into action. He always was smarter than we were about such things."

Harry laughed as they climbed the stairs and Sirius looked down at his godson before continuing. And for the first time, looking into those bright green eyes didn't pierce his heart like an arrow and seeing that messy mop of black hair wasn't like a bludger to the gut. And Sirius felt just a tiny bit of the guilt he had been carrying around with him for nearly fourteen years fade away. And for now, that was enough. He squeezed Harry's shoulder and smiled at him once more, then continued on with his story as they walked into Sirius' room.


End file.
